Delaware: Learn more about America's 1st State

Pictured here is Delaware's state flag

Although it is a small state, Delaware played a significant role in the creation of the United States. Delaware was "The First State" to official join the Union after ratifying the constitution on December 7th 1789. What more American than sticking it to the British? Delaware is just that iconic!

Delaware in located in the North East and Mid Atlantic area of the U.S. It shares borders with Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Delaware is split into 3 counties named after the English cities of New Castle, Sussex, and Kent. Delaware's major cities are Wilmington, Dover, and Newark.

Fun fact, Delaware hosts the world's largest concentration of spawning horseshoe crabs!

Demographics

Race and origin

According to Cencus.gov, Delaware currently has a population of 1.031 million. The state has a predominantly white population which consists of 68% of the total inhabitants. Despite this, Delaware is multicultural as it is home to a growing number of Black/African American (23.8%), Asian (4.4%) and Hispanic/Latino communities (10.3).

Age and Sex

Delaware's population is split down the middle with 25.7% of the population being under the age of 18 while 20.8% of the population is over the age of 65.

The state is a majority female one as they representing 51.4% of the state's inhabitants. 

Income

The median household income in Delaware was $79,000 as of 2022 so majority of the states residents live above poverty. The states poverty levels are also lower than country's poverty rate as currently 9.4% of the population lives in poverty.

Political Affiliation

According to the Pew Research Center, Delaware is a blue state with 55% of its inhabitants leaning towards the Democratic party. The state has voted democratically for the last 8 elections. The remaining electorates is split between 29% Republican leaning with 17% of the population being non-lean.

This pattern was reflected in the 2020 presidential elections. 68.6% of  Delaware's population voted in favor of Joe Biden while 39.8% voted for Donald Trump. Out of Delawares 3 counties New Castle and Kent were overwhelmingly democrat, leaving Sussex as the majority Republican county.

For the most part of the 20th century Delaware leaned towards the Republican Party which may be tied  to the influence of Du Pont Company on Delaware's economy and state politics.

Economy

According to IBIS World, Delaware's economy generates billions of dollars a year. Delaware's economic growth ranks 4th out of all 50 states.

 

The main industries in the state are credit card issuing, commercial banking, and chemical wholesaling which combined bring in a total of $95.4 billion a year.

The most prominent sectors in the state include finance and insurance, real estate & rental leasing, healthcare & social assistance, and manufacturing.

The biggest employers in the state are Christiana care, JPMorgan chase and Amazon who employ 13,000 and 10,000 people respectively. Because the state has a variety of employers in different economic sectors, unemployment rate in Delaware is 4.8%

What are Delawareans concerned about?

In order to gain more information on the public's concerns, the Delaware journalism collaborative conducted several surveys that gauged the public's opinions on the major problems Delaware is current facing. 

Some major problem residents of Delaware were concerned with were crime, drugs, and gun violence as expressed y 18% of respondents. Other problems such as education, healthcare, illegal immigration, insurance etc. were also brough up by respondents. 

Residents of Sussex county (23% of the respondents) named urban sprawl as their major problem. This is mainly due to concern over the reduction of greenery and loss of farmland in favor of new urban development. However this concern isn't shared in more urban counties
such ad Newcastle and Kent as only 4% or respondents were concerned over urban sprawl. 

A question from the survey also asked about the confidence the responders had in their Congress representatives. Half of the respondents felt like their Congress representative didn't make decision based on their constituents' desires. Only 42% of respondents believed that their Congress believed in their congress representatives.